More people choosing 'none of the above'

Rising number of people in U.S. say they aren't affiliated with a religion

By Jamon SmithStaff Writer

Published: Saturday, January 26, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, January 25, 2013 at 6:05 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | When Grace Cooper, Gao Jianan and Zach Forbus were pre-teens, they believed in the Christian God.

All three grew up in Christian households and all their parents are Christians. But Cooper, who is now 18, Jianan, 19, and Forbus, 21, are not Christians. They don't claim any religion at all, and they're part of a growing trend.

One in five adults, or 20 percent of the total U.S. population, do not claim a religious affiliation, according to a study released at the end 2012 by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life and the PBS television program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.” That's a 5 percent increase from 2007.

Of the 20 percent that consider themselves non-religious, 6 percent — 13 million U.S. adults — describe themselves as atheists or agnostics. The other 14 percent — 33 million U.S. adults — said they belong to no religion in particular.

The unaffiliated make up a part of nearly every U.S. demographic group, but their numbers are largest and growing the quickest in the 18-29 age group, among white men, college graduates, people making more than $30,000 annually, the unmarried and in the Northeast. The South had an increase in the unaffiliated as well in 2012 — the number of unaffiliated in the South grew from 12 percent in 2007 to 15 percent in 2012 — but the South had the smallest growth compared to other regions.

The religiously unaffiliated aren't necessarily unbelievers. Two-thirds, or 68 percent, say that they believe in God. Thirty-seven percent describe themselves as spiritual, but not religious. And about one-fifth of them, or 21 percent, say they pray every day.

“I do believe in a higher power, but organized religion has a negative stigma,” said Cooper, a Madison native and freshman at the University of Alabama majoring in environmental science. “I do believe in something else, but I don't feel that we need a religion. I just feel that you have to be a good person and everything will be OK.

“Bunnies can't do math,” she said. “It's outside their scope of understanding. Creation and a higher power are outside of our scope of understanding. Why try to understand it when we never will?”

Religion's response

The study confirms local religious leaders' impressions.

“Those numbers don't surprise me at all,” said Bishop Earnest Palmer, pastor of Cornerstone Full Gospel Baptist Church. “They seem quite in line. What you have is a generational view of organized religion. That age category with the highest growth has seen their fathers, mothers and grandmothers and the effect of religion on their lives and how it consumed them, and somewhat restricted them.

“The younger generation is a generation without limitations,” he said. “None of the traditional thinking that they grew up seeing around them appeals to them because it was not made a part of their upbringing. It's like someone driving down the street seeing an accident. They weren't in the accident, but they saw people messed up and then they drove on. This generation looks at the world system that same way. They see it but don't want to be a part of it.”

The Rev. Jerry Deasy, pastor of Holy Spirit Catholic Church, said the growth of the unaffiliated is a reflection of the country's current culture.

“Our faith and institutions in general are weakening, and the emphasis by many of those who are involved in the decrease, as the Pew research says, do have a spirituality, but not one necessarily connected to organized religion,” Deasy said.

“There's been a loss of faith in institutions in general and a consequence of that is a loss in organized religion,” he said. “I wouldn't see the whole picture in general as being totally negative though. A lot of these people who've lost faith in organized religion are still good people and still very spiritual people.”

The Rev. Tim Lovett, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, said he has a son who fits into fastest growing demographic groups of the unaffiliated.

“Actually for me, because I have a son who fits into that category, being that he's male, educated, single, young and white, it doesn't surprise me,” he said. “So as a parent of one who's part of that generation, I understand that group of people does not see the church doing what scripture teaches it should be doing. They see the church treating its members with a country club mentality.

“The church is just not taking care of its responsibilities, which are taking care of widows, the poor, the sick, the lame and orphans, taking care of aliens, being hospitable to people who are not like you. The thing today is do people see the church as a warm and hospitable place? A place that they want to go back to?”

While Christian pastors weren't alarmed by the study's results, the president of the Islamic Center of Tuscaloosa, Muhammad Sharif, said the results are disturbing.

“We believe in Islam that the meaning of Islam is total submission to the will of God,” Sharif said. “But why people are diverting from religion as a whole gradually more and more, I don't know. I feel like partially people are becoming more materialistic. They want instant gratification.

“I feel disturbed about this,” he said. “Muslims are very firm believers in the religion. We don't think that there's any life without religion and without the creator, who is God. But at the same time, because of this materialistic, capitalistic thought process in society, it's kind of inevitable that this might happen. In Islam, we have similar problems with youth becoming uninterested in religion. We're trying to get the young people's attention to religious matters. We, as Muslims, are trying.”

The unaffiliateds' view

For the most part, the unaffiliated aren't looking for a religion. According to the study, 88 percent of them aren't. Ten percent, however, say that they do want a religion, and 2 percent say they don't know.

The reasons that the majority of the unaffiliated say they aren't seeking a religion is because they feel that religious organizations are too focused on rules, too involved with politics and too concerned with money and power.

“Most people are looking for religion for it to provide them something,” said Forbus, a native of Chesapeake, Va., and a junior majoring in English at UA. “I'm not. My parents are Christians, but they never pushed it on me. I just don't feel I need a religion. I'm content with who I am.

“I think some churches and organizations are greedy and sometimes they're hypocrites,” he said. “What they learn about how they should be and what they actually do are two different things.”

Cooper said many of the people who are in religious organizations are too judgemental. She also said that organized religion has gotten too heavily intertwined with politics.

“What I get from the Bible is love everyone despite your skin color or sexuality,” Cooper said. “You're not better than anyone else. I do believe that a lot of people who practice religion are hypocritical. I also feel that Christianity is being integrated into politics. Social issues like gay marriage are becoming the issues when they shouldn't be an issue.

“It seems like politicians play on peoples religion to get votes,” she said. “Republicans say gay marriage is hurting traditional marriage, and Democrats are saying gay marriage should be an option.”

Though an overwhelming number of the unaffiliated have a negative view of organized religion, many of them believe that religious institutions benefit society.

Jianan, a native of China and a freshman at UA majoring in economics, said his mother is Christian and he respects religion.

“It's hard to say why I don't affiliate with a religion,” he said. “I really respect people who have a religion. I just believe in science and searching for something that I can explain. Religion and God ... they just haven't been explained. In my childhood, I believed in God. When I grew up, at about age 16, I started believing that science was the truth. If religion could be proven.”

Cooper said she agrees with and respects Christianity's teachings on love, but the rest of it doesn't make sense.

“Evolution is a fact,” she said. “I'm sorry, but God didn't create Adam from dirt. The science behind it doesn't make sense. I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. I believe in a little bit of everything.”

Behind the growth

Theodore Trost, a religious studies professor at UA, said many of the unaffiliated were raised in an atmosphere of religious conflict, which resulted from political incursion into religion.

“There's this close association with religion and politics,” Trost said. “For example, the strong influence religion seems to exert over certain groups of Muslims is one indication, but also in contemporary politics religion played a role in the presidential elections. Religion has always played a role in politics in the U.S., but until Jimmy Carter, it was always an invisible hand.

“The phenomenon of political leaders associating themselves with religious leaders is well documented,” he said. “But what happened with Carter, who was a liberal evangelical Christian, is he made his faith somewhat an issue. He discussed how his faith influenced him. This is in contrast to John Kennedy, who as a Catholic, said he was answerable to the U.S. Constitution and not to the Pope.”

Trost said in 1980, when Ronald Reagan came into power, evangelical Christians started taking more of a stance in elections. He said this was the beginning of the contentious relationship that religion and politics has in America.

“One way to stay out of that turmoil is to stay non-affiliated,” he said.

Turning the tide?

Local religious leaders have different ideas on how to bring the unaffiliated into the fold.

Deasy and Lovett said that if the church truly lives out its creed, the tide will change.

“The only way to possibly change it is for the church to live out the gospel values of Jesus in an authentic way,” Deasy said.

Lovett said the Christian church needs to return to its ancient beginnings and focus on the teachings of the religion's namesake, Jesus the Christ.

“Jesus said, ‘This is the work I do, and this the work you are to do,' ” Lovett said. “The church bears a large responsibility in (the unaffiliateds') absence. A lot of people see the church as exclusive instead of inclusive.

“The other part of that is the loving part,” he said. “Again, churches are known more for what they're against rather than what they're for. Love should define us within and without. If I love someone, I want the best for them, even at my expense. We don't see that attitude at a lot of churches. If it costs me something, that's how I know it's loving. It cost God his only son. I think there is great hope for the future if people actually get back to the teachings of scripture.”

Sharif said he isn't sure if there's anything that organized religion can do to reverse the growth of the unaffiliated.

He said religious groups can become more active and develop more interesting sermons that will appeal to youth, but with the country's culture continuing in the direction it's been headed for decades, it may not be enough.

Palmer and the Rev. James Goodlet, president of First Presbyterian Church's campus ministry, both said they're not sure if the church should respond or react to the growth of the unaffiliated.

“Everyone expects the church to respond to these trends,” Palmer said. “The Christian church in particular only has to remain spiritual. We're not reactionist. We're proactive. We have to keep saying what we're saying. The Bible says there will always be remnants. It says many go along the way, but only a few lend themselves to a serious relationship with God.

“So I don't think the church needs to do anything other than what it's already doing, get those who are out, in, and remain steadfast,” he said. “I don't think we should try to recruit or evangelize to people who don't already have a predisposition to what we're saying. I just believe thoroughly that the church ought to stand for what it stands for. There's a passage in the Bible that says ‘If I be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto me.' ”

Goodlet said he's not sure what the answer is. He said what's happening with the decline of Christianity in America and the increase of the non-

religious isn't something people should necessarily be afraid of.

“What I see from our college students is they want to be in deep community relationship with each other,” Goodlet said. “They want a place where they're not just a number, but where they're seen and heard. Some say they worry that there's a disconnect between what we say and what we do. They use hypocrisy. If there's any sense that people aren't genuine and not real, I think it turns young people off. I think there's a lot of idealism in the college student, and anything that doesn't fit that ideal might be problematic to them. If a church is not out there serving the poor or following Jesus, they may not be interested.

“I think they want to see the church at its basics,” he said. “I don't look at this trend so much as a problem, but an opportunity. I can let someone know I love them. If the numbers continue overall to decline and decline, all I can do is be as faithful as I can be and leave it up to God. The world is not as faithful as it used to be in the '50s and '60s. We're bombarded with different societies and ideals and technology. I think there's something healthy about saying ‘I don't know' sometimes, though. You can just try to be faithful, but we don't know all the answers.

“Maybe we're on the precipice of something new as a church. Maybe we're going back to the beginning where we were on the outside looking in and not at the top of the list. Maybe that's a good thing. When you're on the margins looking in, it's a lot better time to be prophetic than when you're on top. I'm actually excited about it.”

<p>TUSCALOOSA | When Grace Cooper, Gao Jianan and Zach Forbus were pre-teens, they believed in the Christian God.</p><p>All three grew up in Christian households and all their parents are Christians. But Cooper, who is now 18, Jianan, 19, and Forbus, 21, are not Christians. They don't claim any religion at all, and they're part of a growing trend.</p><p>One in five adults, or 20 percent of the total U.S. population, do not claim a religious affiliation, according to a study released at the end 2012 by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life and the PBS television program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.” That's a 5 percent increase from 2007.</p><p>Of the 20 percent that consider themselves non-religious, 6 percent — 13 million U.S. adults — describe themselves as atheists or agnostics. The other 14 percent — 33 million U.S. adults — said they belong to no religion in particular.</p><p>The unaffiliated make up a part of nearly every U.S. demographic group, but their numbers are largest and growing the quickest in the 18-29 age group, among white men, college graduates, people making more than $30,000 annually, the unmarried and in the Northeast. The South had an increase in the unaffiliated as well in 2012 — the number of unaffiliated in the South grew from 12 percent in 2007 to 15 percent in 2012 — but the South had the smallest growth compared to other regions. </p><p>The religiously unaffiliated aren't necessarily unbelievers. Two-thirds, or 68 percent, say that they believe in God. Thirty-seven percent describe themselves as spiritual, but not religious. And about one-fifth of them, or 21 percent, say they pray every day.</p><p>“I do believe in a higher power, but organized religion has a negative stigma,” said Cooper, a Madison native and freshman at the University of Alabama majoring in environmental science. “I do believe in something else, but I don't feel that we need a religion. I just feel that you have to be a good person and everything will be OK.</p><p>“Bunnies can't do math,” she said. “It's outside their scope of understanding. Creation and a higher power are outside of our scope of understanding. Why try to understand it when we never will?”</p><p>Religion's response </p><p>The study confirms local religious leaders' impressions.</p><p>“Those numbers don't surprise me at all,” said Bishop Earnest Palmer, pastor of Cornerstone Full Gospel Baptist Church. “They seem quite in line. What you have is a generational view of organized religion. That age category with the highest growth has seen their fathers, mothers and grandmothers and the effect of religion on their lives and how it consumed them, and somewhat restricted them.</p><p>“The younger generation is a generation without limitations,” he said. “None of the traditional thinking that they grew up seeing around them appeals to them because it was not made a part of their upbringing. It's like someone driving down the street seeing an accident. They weren't in the accident, but they saw people messed up and then they drove on. This generation looks at the world system that same way. They see it but don't want to be a part of it.”</p><p>The Rev. Jerry Deasy, pastor of Holy Spirit Catholic Church, said the growth of the unaffiliated is a reflection of the country's current culture.</p><p>“Our faith and institutions in general are weakening, and the emphasis by many of those who are involved in the decrease, as the Pew research says, do have a spirituality, but not one necessarily connected to organized religion,” Deasy said.</p><p>“There's been a loss of faith in institutions in general and a consequence of that is a loss in organized religion,” he said. “I wouldn't see the whole picture in general as being totally negative though. A lot of these people who've lost faith in organized religion are still good people and still very spiritual people.”</p><p>The Rev. Tim Lovett, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, said he has a son who fits into fastest growing demographic groups of the unaffiliated.</p><p>“Actually for me, because I have a son who fits into that category, being that he's male, educated, single, young and white, it doesn't surprise me,” he said. “So as a parent of one who's part of that generation, I understand that group of people does not see the church doing what scripture teaches it should be doing. They see the church treating its members with a country club mentality.</p><p>“The church is just not taking care of its responsibilities, which are taking care of widows, the poor, the sick, the lame and orphans, taking care of aliens, being hospitable to people who are not like you. The thing today is do people see the church as a warm and hospitable place? A place that they want to go back to?”</p><p>While Christian pastors weren't alarmed by the study's results, the president of the Islamic Center of Tuscaloosa, Muhammad Sharif, said the results are disturbing.</p><p>“We believe in Islam that the meaning of Islam is total submission to the will of God,” Sharif said. “But why people are diverting from religion as a whole gradually more and more, I don't know. I feel like partially people are becoming more materialistic. They want instant gratification.</p><p>“I feel disturbed about this,” he said. “Muslims are very firm believers in the religion. We don't think that there's any life without religion and without the creator, who is God. But at the same time, because of this materialistic, capitalistic thought process in society, it's kind of inevitable that this might happen. In Islam, we have similar problems with youth becoming uninterested in religion. We're trying to get the young people's attention to religious matters. We, as Muslims, are trying.”</p><p>The unaffiliateds' view </p><p>For the most part, the unaffiliated aren't looking for a religion. According to the study, 88 percent of them aren't. Ten percent, however, say that they do want a religion, and 2 percent say they don't know.</p><p>The reasons that the majority of the unaffiliated say they aren't seeking a religion is because they feel that religious organizations are too focused on rules, too involved with politics and too concerned with money and power. </p><p>“Most people are looking for religion for it to provide them something,” said Forbus, a native of Chesapeake, Va., and a junior majoring in English at UA. “I'm not. My parents are Christians, but they never pushed it on me. I just don't feel I need a religion. I'm content with who I am.</p><p>“I think some churches and organizations are greedy and sometimes they're hypocrites,” he said. “What they learn about how they should be and what they actually do are two different things.”</p><p>Cooper said many of the people who are in religious organizations are too judgemental. She also said that organized religion has gotten too heavily intertwined with politics.</p><p>“What I get from the Bible is love everyone despite your skin color or sexuality,” Cooper said. “You're not better than anyone else. I do believe that a lot of people who practice religion are hypocritical. I also feel that Christianity is being integrated into politics. Social issues like gay marriage are becoming the issues when they shouldn't be an issue.</p><p>“It seems like politicians play on peoples religion to get votes,” she said. “Republicans say gay marriage is hurting traditional marriage, and Democrats are saying gay marriage should be an option.”</p><p>Though an overwhelming number of the unaffiliated have a negative view of organized religion, many of them believe that religious institutions benefit society.</p><p>Jianan, a native of China and a freshman at UA majoring in economics, said his mother is Christian and he respects religion.</p><p>“It's hard to say why I don't affiliate with a religion,” he said. “I really respect people who have a religion. I just believe in science and searching for something that I can explain. Religion and God ... they just haven't been explained. In my childhood, I believed in God. When I grew up, at about age 16, I started believing that science was the truth. If religion could be proven.”</p><p>Cooper said she agrees with and respects Christianity's teachings on love, but the rest of it doesn't make sense.</p><p>“Evolution is a fact,” she said. “I'm sorry, but God didn't create Adam from dirt. The science behind it doesn't make sense. I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. I believe in a little bit of everything.”</p><p>Behind the growth</p><p>Theodore Trost, a religious studies professor at UA, said many of the unaffiliated were raised in an atmosphere of religious conflict, which resulted from political incursion into religion.</p><p>“There's this close association with religion and politics,” Trost said. “For example, the strong influence religion seems to exert over certain groups of Muslims is one indication, but also in contemporary politics religion played a role in the presidential elections. Religion has always played a role in politics in the U.S., but until Jimmy Carter, it was always an invisible hand.</p><p>“The phenomenon of political leaders associating themselves with religious leaders is well documented,” he said. “But what happened with Carter, who was a liberal evangelical Christian, is he made his faith somewhat an issue. He discussed how his faith influenced him. This is in contrast to John Kennedy, who as a Catholic, said he was answerable to the U.S. Constitution and not to the Pope.”</p><p>Trost said in 1980, when Ronald Reagan came into power, evangelical Christians started taking more of a stance in elections. He said this was the beginning of the contentious relationship that religion and politics has in America.</p><p>“One way to stay out of that turmoil is to stay non-affiliated,” he said.</p><p>Turning the tide?</p><p>Local religious leaders have different ideas on how to bring the unaffiliated into the fold.</p><p>Deasy and Lovett said that if the church truly lives out its creed, the tide will change.</p><p>“The only way to possibly change it is for the church to live out the gospel values of Jesus in an authentic way,” Deasy said.</p><p>Lovett said the Christian church needs to return to its ancient beginnings and focus on the teachings of the religion's namesake, Jesus the Christ.</p><p>“Jesus said, 'This is the work I do, and this the work you are to do,' ” Lovett said. “The church bears a large responsibility in (the unaffiliateds') absence. A lot of people see the church as exclusive instead of inclusive.</p><p>“The other part of that is the loving part,” he said. “Again, churches are known more for what they're against rather than what they're for. Love should define us within and without. If I love someone, I want the best for them, even at my expense. We don't see that attitude at a lot of churches. If it costs me something, that's how I know it's loving. It cost God his only son. I think there is great hope for the future if people actually get back to the teachings of scripture.”</p><p>Sharif said he isn't sure if there's anything that organized religion can do to reverse the growth of the unaffiliated.</p><p>He said religious groups can become more active and develop more interesting sermons that will appeal to youth, but with the country's culture continuing in the direction it's been headed for decades, it may not be enough. </p><p>Palmer and the Rev. James Goodlet, president of First Presbyterian Church's campus ministry, both said they're not sure if the church should respond or react to the growth of the unaffiliated.</p><p>“Everyone expects the church to respond to these trends,” Palmer said. “The Christian church in particular only has to remain spiritual. We're not reactionist. We're proactive. We have to keep saying what we're saying. The Bible says there will always be remnants. It says many go along the way, but only a few lend themselves to a serious relationship with God.</p><p>“So I don't think the church needs to do anything other than what it's already doing, get those who are out, in, and remain steadfast,” he said. “I don't think we should try to recruit or evangelize to people who don't already have a predisposition to what we're saying. I just believe thoroughly that the church ought to stand for what it stands for. There's a passage in the Bible that says 'If I be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto me.' ”</p><p>Goodlet said he's not sure what the answer is. He said what's happening with the decline of Christianity in America and the increase of the non-</p><p>religious isn't something people should necessarily be afraid of.</p><p>“What I see from our college students is they want to be in deep community relationship with each other,” Goodlet said. “They want a place where they're not just a number, but where they're seen and heard. Some say they worry that there's a disconnect between what we say and what we do. They use hypocrisy. If there's any sense that people aren't genuine and not real, I think it turns young people off. I think there's a lot of idealism in the college student, and anything that doesn't fit that ideal might be problematic to them. If a church is not out there serving the poor or following Jesus, they may not be interested.</p><p>“I think they want to see the church at its basics,” he said. “I don't look at this trend so much as a problem, but an opportunity. I can let someone know I love them. If the numbers continue overall to decline and decline, all I can do is be as faithful as I can be and leave it up to God. The world is not as faithful as it used to be in the '50s and '60s. We're bombarded with different societies and ideals and technology. I think there's something healthy about saying 'I don't know' sometimes, though. You can just try to be faithful, but we don't know all the answers.</p><p>“Maybe we're on the precipice of something new as a church. Maybe we're going back to the beginning where we were on the outside looking in and not at the top of the list. Maybe that's a good thing. When you're on the margins looking in, it's a lot better time to be prophetic than when you're on top. I'm actually excited about it.”</p>